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Dentigerumycin: a bacterial mediator of an ant-fungus symbiosis

Nature Chemical Biology volume 5, pages 391–393 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Fungus-growing ants engage in mutualistic associations with both the fungus they cultivate for food and actinobacteria (Pseudonocardia spp.) that produce selective antibiotics to defend that fungus from specialized fungal parasites. We have analyzed one such system at the molecular level and found that the bacterium associated with the ant Apterostigma dentigerum produces dentigerumycin, a cyclic depsipeptide with highly modified amino acids, to selectively inhibit the associated parasitic fungus (Escovopsis sp.).

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Figure 1: Symbiotic partners: ant, fungi and bacteria.
Figure 2: Structure and activity of dentigerumycin (1).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute for providing facilities in which to work in Panama, the Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente y el Mar for sampling and export permits, J. Heemstra and C. Walsh (Harvard Medical School) for providing synthetic piperazic acids, and A. Adams, S. Marsh, A. Pinto-Tomas and G. Suen (University of Wisconsin–Madison) for comments on a manuscript draft. This work was supported by funding from the Lundbeck and Carlsberg Foundations to M.P., from the US National Science Foundation (MCB07020255) to C.R.C. and from the US National Institutes of Health (CA24487) to J.C.

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Author notes

  1. Dong-Chan Oh and Michael Poulsen: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Dong-Chan Oh & Jon Clardy

  2. Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    Michael Poulsen & Cameron R Currie

Authors
  1. Dong-Chan Oh
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  2. Michael Poulsen
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  3. Cameron R Currie
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  4. Jon Clardy
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Contributions

D.-C.O., M.P., C.R.C. and J.C. designed experiments and wrote the manuscript. D.-C.O. performed the structural determination and biological activity analysis on dentigerumycin. M.P. isolated the cultivar, the parasite and the Pseudonocardia symbionts and performed bioassay parings.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Cameron R Currie or Jon Clardy.

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Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figures 1–8, Supplementary Tables 1 and 2, and Supplementary Methods (PDF 1001 kb)

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Oh, DC., Poulsen, M., Currie, C. et al. Dentigerumycin: a bacterial mediator of an ant-fungus symbiosis. Nat Chem Biol 5, 391–393 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.159

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